An update from Valve seems to have mistakenly changed City 17's official language.

If you launched Half-Life 2 earlier today, you may have been surprised to hear every NPC delivering their lines in Korean instead of your language of choice. Luckily Gordon Freeman is fluent in Korean (presumably), but many gamers were left wondering what the deal was. Naturally, this being Valve, theories started flying immediately. Valve updated the original Portal with clues just prior to the announcement of Portal 2, so fans were bouncing of the walls in hopes that this was the start of some new ARG leading up to the announcement of the mythical Half-Life 3. The theories were given some weight when Steam Support tweeted this cryptic message:

WARNING: The most recent HL2 update has some issues. We're working to fix this, you can pause the update for now. 예측하지 못한 결과에 대비하라...— Steam Support (@Steam_Support) June 25, 2013

The Korean text translates to "Prepare for unforeseen consequences," a reference to a chapter in the first Half-Life. Don't start learning Korean to find clues, though; the bug has been fixed and NPCs should now speak the right language. A Valve employee stepped into the comments section of the latest patch notes, apologizing for the mistake and shooting down the theories: "No ARG sorry, just me mucking up."

Naturally some fans are denying the simple explanation and assuming that this is an elaborate hint towards a reveal during the Steam Summer Sale. Disavowal from the Valve team is pretty strong evidence to the contrary, but then again, that's just what they'd want us to think.

Wait I get it! Half Life 3 will have something do with starcraft 2! Right? Half life 3 will be life Starcraft 2 in that it will be announced years and years after the previous entry and come right the fuck out of nowwhere! Right! Right? Right?!

Ed130:It still begs the question of why they are updating a 9 year old game.

Not that I'm complaining mind you, I just wonder why they did.

Every time Valve updates anything to do with the engine on any game running on the Source Engine, they'll pass those updates on to other games running on the same branch of it, if not to every branch of it. They even updated the original Half Life not too long ago, since they had just ported it to Linux and they made some changes in the process. Changes which removed more features than they added, but changes nonetheless.

I love how after all these years nothing has changed - whether there is the merest hint of something that may be news or a clue, or not.. the fanbase immediately whips up into "Ohmigosh HL3!" mode. The hope and optimism warms my black little heart.

AWAR:How exactly does a minor update to Half Life 2 hint a new game?It gets updated often really, along with other source engine games. I think people are getting really paranoid lately..

The Half-Life fanbase are their own worst enemies, Valve have been known to be tricksy little hobbitses in the past and it has lead to people jumping to conclusions at everything valve does, they can't even put a three in a game without someone freaking out.

Experts have analysed the chemical content of the aroma and notice it contained trace amounts of Lithium and Hafnium which certain internet users have discovered are presented as 'HF' and 'Li' on the periodic table. Could this be Gabe leaking information? This picture below of Gabe's so called "Unintentional" shart shows what could be the distinctive lambda symbol that Half Life fans know and love etched into Gabe's boxers.

Experts are also analysing the frequency of the three squeaks in Adobe Audition to see if there are hints about HL3 in the waveform.

Simply coincidence? or an elaborate and pointless ARG by Valve to tease the release of a game they wish everyone will shut the fuck up over. Keep clicking every time you see us mention the next Half Life game and maybe you will find out."

E3 2014 we will see Half-Life 3 trailer Left 4 Dead 3 trailer. Half-Life 2:Episode 3 movie. And all on Source Engine 2. Oh and Dawn of War 3.

Valve prob had planned to put HL2:EP3 out ages ago but the source engine is old, still holds up but....after soo long of a wait they prob want to start again with a new engine like they did when they were dicking us around with HL2 back in the day.

Was Half Life 2 actually in Korean until now? I doubt it would have debuted with Korean as an option, as back then, the country had only just emerged from national pro-piracy policies. I know Portal had gained niche popularity over there since though. With the new piracy crackdown coming out of the Blue House, the Korean market is finally ripe for the picking.

I'm glad I read this before getting too excited. I remember when Gabe randomly started talking about sharks at (I think) E3 a couple years ago, and we were all convinced it had something to do with Half-Life. It took a while to heal from that one...

This CAN NOT be a coincidencePHA+PGltZyBzcmM9Imh0dHBzOi8vZmJjZG4tc3Bob3Rvcy1jLWEuYWthbWFpaGQubmV0L2hwaG90b3MtYWstcHJuMS9xNzEvczcyMHg3MjAvMTAxNDMyNl82Nzc4NzQzNjg5MDYyNDhfNDA3MDk4NDgzX24uanBnIiBhbHQ9ImltYWdlIi8+PC9wPg==

Anyway, it is possible that this has to do with the Linux port, since the Linux beta had a bug which made everything russian (I think) some time ago.

Lono Shrugged:"Gabe Newell recently farted in a interview with Forbes,

Experts have analysed the chemical content of the aroma and notice it contained trace amounts of Lithium and Hafnium which certain internet users have discovered are presented as 'HF' and 'Li' on the periodic table. Could this be Gabe leaking information? This picture below of Gabe's so called "Unintentional" shart shows what could be the distinctive lambda symbol that Half Life fans know and love etched into Gabe's boxers.

Experts are also analysing the frequency of the three squeaks in Adobe Audition to see if there are hints about HL3 in the waveform.

Simply coincidence? or an elaborate and pointless ARG by Valve to tease the release of a game they wish everyone will shut the fuck up over. Keep clicking every time you see us mention the next Half Life game and maybe you will find out."

Twist ending: Half Life 3 is actually an elaborate alternate reality social media meta-game based around analysing "clues" to figure out if the game "Half-Life 3" even exists. We've already been playing it without knowing for several years now D=

How can you accidentally write "Prepare for unforeseen consequences" in Korean in a tweet? Less mucking up and more mucking around. I do enjoy watching Valve troll though, whether intentionally or accidentally they always hit the mark.

I was waiting for the next event to cause shock, panic, speculation, and hysteria among the HL3 community. I don't remember one of those this whole year, it was bound to happen.

Lono Shrugged:"Gabe Newell recently farted in a interview with Forbes,

Experts have analysed the chemical content of the aroma and notice it contained trace amounts of Lithium and Hafnium which certain internet users have discovered are presented as 'HF' and 'Li' on the periodic table. Could this be Gabe leaking information? This picture below of Gabe's so called "Unintentional" shart shows what could be the distinctive lambda symbol that Half Life fans know and love etched into Gabe's boxers.

Experts are also analysing the frequency of the three squeaks in Adobe Audition to see if there are hints about HL3 in the waveform.

Simply coincidence? or an elaborate and pointless ARG by Valve to tease the release of a game they wish everyone will shut the fuck up over. Keep clicking every time you see us mention the next Half Life game and maybe you will find out."

Lono Shrugged:"Gabe Newell recently farted in a interview with Forbes,

Experts have analysed the chemical content of the aroma and notice it contained trace amounts of Lithium and Hafnium which certain internet users have discovered are presented as 'HF' and 'Li' on the periodic table. Could this be Gabe leaking information? This picture below of Gabe's so called "Unintentional" shart shows what could be the distinctive lambda symbol that Half Life fans know and love etched into Gabe's boxers.

Experts are also analysing the frequency of the three squeaks in Adobe Audition to see if there are hints about HL3 in the waveform.

Simply coincidence? or an elaborate and pointless ARG by Valve to tease the release of a game they wish everyone will shut the fuck up over. Keep clicking every time you see us mention the next Half Life game and maybe you will find out."

ARG is really code for Almost Ready Gabe. So it is obvious that the game is almost done and they were signaling Gabe that the game will not come out today but on Friday because that is the next date with a G in it, Twenty eiGht.

Ed130:It still begs the question of why they are updating a 9 year old game.

Not that I'm complaining mind you, I just wonder why they did.

It was an update for people who had signed up for a beta that converts the way the files are stored and adds Linux support. Nearly all of the patches since the beta came out were to fix bugs with the Linux version. Though there are things that need fixed... ironically, most of them are due to a poorly implemented update back in 2010 that served a similar purpose.

Okay lets break this down. The NPCs were speaking Korean. There are 5 letters in the word Korea. This took place in Half-Life 2. 5 minus 2 equals 3. BOOM! We have confirmation of Half-Life 3. Let's go even further. We currently have Half-Life 2, plus episode 1 and 2. Lets put all those numbers together. Two plus one plus two equals five...like the number of letters in the word Korea. Whaaaat! The evidence is getting out of control here, Valve could not be anymore obvious about the impending release of Half-Life 3

00slash00:Okay lets break this down. The NPCs were speaking Korean. There are 5 letters in the word Korea. This took place in Half-Life 2. 5 minus 2 equals 3. BOOM! We have confirmation of Half-Life 3. Let's go even further. We currently have Half-Life 2, plus episode 1 and 2. Lets put all those numbers together. Two plus one plus two equals five...like the number of letters in the word Korea. Whaaaat! The evidence is getting out of control here, Valve could not be anymore obvious about the impending release of Half-Life 3